Four Voices That Don’t Need Permission

Alma’s mixtape Heavy Rules dropped and I’ve been living inside it for the better part of a day. She pulled in MØ, Kiiara, and Tove Styrke to fill it out—four women from the Nordic and Baltic edges of European pop who all seem to have arrived at their sound by surviving something.

If Alma isn’t on your radar yet: Finnish, early twenties, neon green hair, voice that could strip wallpaper. Someone described her once as a cybergoth Adele who sounds like Beth Ditto, and that comparison keeps recurring to me because it captures something true without fully accounting for what she actually does. Her platinum singles Chasing Highs and Phases established a particular refusal—to be polished in the way that pop typically demands politeness. There’s a physicality in how she sings that feels almost confrontational.

Heavy Rules moves through Dance for Me, Chit Chat, and Good Vibes with a confidence that borders on studied indifference. MØ brings that hoarse urgency she’s had since the beginning—the feeling that she’s singing from somewhere slightly dangerous. Kiiara operates in a different register altogether, more fractured and electronic, like pop music left out in the rain. Tove Styrke is maybe the most underrated of the four; she’s been making precise, genuinely odd pop for years and getting less credit than she deserves.

What surprises me is how coherent the whole thing feels. Four strong personalities sharing a project usually produces something that sounds like four separate tracks stapled together. This doesn’t. It sounds like an argument that ended well.